There are many meanings of the word AVERAGE excluding the mathematical ones. I’m specifically drawing the attention towards rating someone / something.
In India as we very casually use it, it means anything that is normal and regular and that’s exactly where the issue is.
There are usually 3 tiers in rating.
Good, Average and Bad.
We in India have accepted the “Average” as normal and regular. We do not look for improvements. We’ve stopped looking for Good. We’ve been innovative enough to coin phrases like “Above Average”.
But hey, it’s still not good enough but we do accept them.
Is there a problem with such behavior in a country like ours considering the population? Well, the answer is a resounding YES.
Ironically, with the size and variety available in our country we should be so far ahead looking for the BEST let alone the “Good”. Instead we have lowered the bar and have settled for “Average” because almost everyone behaves similarly and is the new accepted level of performance.
There is a section of parents who pressurize their kids to be the best in whatever they do but that’s such a narrow-minded approach (thanks to the increasing reality TV competition across ages).
Somewhere we push the child so much that he/she then becomes averse to competition and / or succumbs to the peer-pressure and looks at extreme measures like suicide.
On the other hand the majority still only aspires to be like the few who’ve succeeded and are quite satisfied at reaching 1/4th or ½ that level of achievement which becomes the new “Average”.
Encouraging is one thing and false appreciation is another. We as a nation need to identify the difference and tread the sticky path carefully.
Take a look at the students with their school projects (in schools that are into such activities) and look at the quality. There would hardly be one child with an exceptional outcome. Rest is poor imitations of projects that were done elsewhere. Try looking at the cultural activities and the performances in schools. Majority of them would be mediocre with an exception. But that’s precisely the point. With the size and variety, we should be looking at a majority of exceptional quality and innovation (innovation being the key word) vis-à-vis the so called “Average” aspirants.
I’ve used the examples from a school life only to illustrate that this is how early this “average chalta hai” habit sets in.
However the trend is visible everywhere – be it corporate life, civic sense or social behavior.
We’ve just accepted the average.
Yet again, we need to remind ourselves that this is a very sticky path. There is a subtle difference between quest for excellence and sheer competition. Its competition when you do it with others but if one would want to outdo oneself that would be quest for excellence. We should encourage individuals to raise their own bar and not in comparison to others. Each would have their respective strengths and the key is to identify it and helping them excel in that.
It’s time we draw the line and draw it high. Mediocrity should not be tolerated.
Excellence alone should be the new law of “Average”s.
